A&O Shearman is a global, integrated law firm, comprising nearly 4,000 lawyers, which is renowned for tackling complex, multijurisdictional matters. Named the “Most Innovative Law Firm in Europe” at the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards (Europe) 2024, the firm is revolutionizing legal services by developing and deploying cutting-edge AI systems.

A&O Shearman identified a number of legal processes that consume disproportionate amounts of attorney time—including drafting, summarization, clause comparisons, and precedent searches—while detracting from time spent on high-value client work. The firm recognized an opportunity to modernize these routine, manual workflows to allow its attorneys to spend more time providing strategic advice to their clients.

The Markets Innovation Group, which is a forward-thinking, multidisciplinary group within A&O Shearman that is made up of lawyers, software engineers and technologists, seized the opportunity to use generative AI to revolutionize legal services. The team focused initially on integrating Harvey to enhance efficiency and client outcomes.

A&O Shearman’s deployment of Harvey began with a sandbox. A limited number of attorneys were given access in a ring-fenced environment. During this period, use cases and risks were identified, and robust governance protocols were put in place. Attorneys quickly harnessed Harvey’s transformative potential, accelerating workflows and boosting productivity, namely on tasks like summarization and legal analysis.

In December 2022, A&O Shearman became the first law firm to implement Harvey at an enterprise level. Today, Harvey helps 4,000 of its staff members, across 43 jurisdictions, tackle complex challenges and deliver better and faster client outcomes.

A&O Shearman then developed and launched ContractMatrix in 2023, in partnership with Harvey and Microsoft. “We aimed to develop an AI tool that would revolutionize contract drafting, review and negotiation. We knew from the outset that we would integrate Harvey’s large language model (LLM) into the tool’s tech stack as it is the most finely tuned AI model for legal professionals,” explained Wakeling.

Powered by the Harvey API, as well as several of OpenAI’s AI models via Microsoft’s OpenAI Azure Service, ContractMatrix enables users to leverage cutting-edge generative AI technology, as well as a repository of their organizations’ gold-standard precedents and policies, when drafting and negotiating contracts. Notably, ContractMatrix grounds the AI output in these established precedents and policies, which reduces the likelihood of hallucinations.

Today, around 2,000 of A&O Shearman’s lawyers use ContractMatrix daily. Clients—including leading life sciences organizations, financial institutions, sovereign wealth funds and technology companies—are also licensing the tool to enhance their operations and realize efficiency and quality gains.

Through the firm’s use of Harvey and the development and deployment of ContractMatrix, A&O Shearman are transforming the way legal services are delivered. By automating routine tasks, the firm is empowering attorneys to spend more time on substantive, strategic work, which not only improves client outcomes, but also accelerates their professional development.

"Our goal is to liberate lawyers from mundane, routine tasks, so that they can concentrate on what matters: strategic thinking, providing expert advice, and exercising sound judgment,” said Wakeling.

In addition to developing and deploying AI tools to disrupt the firm and the legal industry more broadly, A&O Shearman also provides AI-related legal advice through its market-leading, multijurisdictional AI advisory practice. It leverages its firsthand experience of building and adopting pioneering AI systems to provide advice to clients that is grounded in deep technical and practical expertise. Engagements by A&O Shearman’s AI advisory practice are wide-ranging, from working with businesses to develop and implement novel data and AI governance mechanisms, to helping nation states to formulate AI policy and regulation.